Review by S. Kim for Norton 360 3.0 1-User/3Pc
Rating:
I first started using Norton 360 on my laptop running Windows XP and it was pretty awful. It would always “ding” an alert or notice on every legitimate web site or online retailer. In addition, my laptop became terribly s-l-o-w. So bad in fact I thought it was my memory, and even with a memory upgrade it was crawling along. After that experience, I evolved into a new laptop running Windows Vista and bought Kaspersky Internet Security. This was a total disaster. Kaspersky, in my experience, is total junk! EVERY web page and browsing experience was blocked with so many “threat” notices that I had to disable it just to use Internet explorer. Not even Mozilla Firefox had a chance. So, in need of relief, I saw this “new” version of Norton 360. I removed the Kaspersky and installed Norton 360 Version 3.0 (As of April 8, 2009 be careful what you buy, when I was shopping, many stores were still carrying the older 2.0 version.) I did cautiously backup my system before installing this, and after installing it; it pretty much works as described. It will keep log-ins, and passwords stored within its program for various sites, like Amazon.com for example and these are password protected.

What is more noticeable to me, over my past experience with Norton 360 Version 1.0 is the “diet” the software has undergone. On my laptop, again running Windows Vista, (two years old) there does not appear to be any lag, or sluggishness, and you could argue it is faster than when Kaspersky was running. At first I thought the protection was not running, but it is, and I don’t notice it.

As far as options, there is a Premier Version 3.0 and a “plain” Version 3.0. The main difference, as you see on the back of the box, is an upgrade in online storage. I have not tried to use the online storage and don’t plan on using it. I already have a big enough external back-up drive and I do not like uploading my personal or sensitive files for someone else to hold onto. But it’s your call in the end.

Pros: “light” software, hardly noticeable, compatible with Windows Vista, and able to securely remember log-ins and passwords

Cons: Having to buy this every year

Hope this review helps!

Review by R. McAdams for Norton 360 3.0 1-User/3Pc
Rating:
I have a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Computer Science with a Minor in Security and Forensics. I feel qualified to speak about this product as a professional in the field. I am not an “expert” because I do not work in the “Virus” scanning or software field, and I do not work for Norton. But I am a professional in the field of Computer Science and Computer Security.

Note: I am putting the word “virus” in quotes, to emphasize that the word is a media creation, and is not entirely indicative of the real behaviors and traits of malicious codes and programs. In biology, an organism can “catch” a real virus by simply being near it and/or exposed to it. In the world of computer security, active acceptance of a “virus” is needed, in order to “get it.” This can include running unknown downloads, browsing shifty websites with an insecure browser, etc. Security threats can come from a multitude of sources: websites, downloads, programs, scripts, macros, etc. They are called all sorts of names: “spyware,” “malware,” “viruses,” etc. All of these names and categories try to order and control something which is by its very nature uncontrollable. It is better to call is all “malicious code” and stop trying to categorize it. But, for the purposes of this review, “virus” refers to a type of malicious computer code which is generally intended to do harm to a target computer, and/or to ferret out financial/personal information, and/or capture control of a computer to allow the “virus” writer to use it for illegal purposes later.

First of all, let me state that I generally don’t use any form of “Virus” security software. I generally don’t trust them, and I do not like their subscription model of business. Over the years, I have used: AVG, McAfee, Norton, and lesser known products to CLEAN an infected system I was called in to look at. But, I do not use the products myself on my own systems. I generally use a simple firewall and on some more critical systems I will also use a behavior monitor to flag and block suspicious behaviors from software. If one follows good computer security practices, security software above a firewall and possibly a behavior monitor (such as from ZoneAlarm Pro or PC Tools “ThreatFire” or SpyBot’s “TeaTimer”) are all you need. Even with all of the security software in the world, you STILL have a chance of being hit, especially from a “zero day” threat. Because of that, the only way to 100% protect your data, is to perform regular backups.

However, I have to give Norton credit for giving this product a good “college try.” First of all, they are doing their best to protect against “zero day” threats. A “zero day” threat is a threat on the day it is released. This is usually a problem, because most security software, especially “virus” scanners tend to rely on program “signatures” — the names, and code and makeup of specific virus files. The “virus” is most dangerous on the day of its release, because the security software hasn’t been updated to recognize it yet. In the past, updates to get new “signatures” used to happen on a daily or even a weekly schedule. This left a window of opportunity to get hit before the signatures were updated. And frequently, once you have been hit, the “virus” will disable your security software, or render itself invisible to it. Norton 360 v. 3.0 is attempting to combat this by literally checking for updates every 5-10 minutes or so. Additionally, Norton sets up an automatic backup process which can be used to restore critical files after a disaster. This will not help if your entire hard drive gets nuked by a virus, but it is better than nothing.

So, how did I test this product? I threw the proverbial kitchen sink at it, that’s how. Note, this product requires Windows XP SP 2 or greater to install. The first test system I attempted to install it on was an original XP system with no updates. It refused to install (as do AVG and MacAfee for that matter, just to be fair). So, I installed it on a test system which I slightly more used than the older test system. Once I had installed it, run its updates, and run all of the scans, etc. (it found nothing, which is what I expected it to find), I was ready to try to break it. I networked a known corrupted system to the test system, and opened the network and file sharing protocols. I began accessing files, moving known infected files to the test system, etc. Basically, I gave the infected system the chance to take over the test system. I also loaded known virus files of various types (including Unix/Linux viruses which have no affect on Windows systems) to see if Norton would spot them, and what it would do with them.

Sure enough, the infected system started trying to get into the test system over the network. And I started receiving pop-up messages from Norton telling me over and over again that “such and such virus, or process, or whatever” had been blocked. It also dug up, within minutes, all of the known “virus” files and folders (even the Unix/Linux ones) I had loaded. Okay, so it was good at blocking bad stuff from a few months ago, and known “virus” files, even from other operating systems. What about zero day stuff? I hit a “hacker” website with an unsecured version of Internet Explorer (v. 5) which is known to try to inject into insecure browsers. Norton blocked it. I then downloaded the source code to a “virus” the “hacker” community was promoting, and compiled it and ran it (I altered the source code so it wouldn’t actually harm any of the files on the test system if Norton failed), and sure enough, Norton had a signature for it, and blocked it. So, Norton 360 was able to repel attacks from a known infected agent. It was able to catch all of the “virus” files I presented it with, it was able to repel attacks from a known bad website, and it was able to catch and repel a self inflicted attack from a “zero day” “virus.” Not bad. Not bad at all. For someone like my mother or grandmother, this is exactly the kind of product they need. It takes care of the details, and leaves them (more or less) safe.

The other features Norton 360 v. 3.0 has are fairly trivial. It has a disc optimization wizard (read: defrag), and a cleanup wizard (read: delete temporary files). Most of its PC Tune-up tools are either included in Windows, available for free online, or unadvisable. Their registry cleaner seems OK, but any time you mess around with the registry, you are asking for trouble. The backup function works fine, and can be scheduled to run automatically. And the identity protection stuff works fine too. If you are running Mozilla’s “Firefox” you already have most of the tools that the identity protection offered by Norton offers, such as identifying insecure websites, etc. It has too many features too really rate and enumerate individually. I tested the major ones that an average user is going to care about.

Now, on to my only major gripe about Norton 360 v. 3.0 (and all security software suites for that matter). They claim, “Norton 360 3.0 [is] the industry’s fastest, lightest, most complete security solution” and they claim that, “[it] is the fastest and lightest all-in-one PC protection solution available on the market today. [...] using significantly fewer system resources, so it won’t slow you down: [...] It uses less than 10 MB of memory.”

Well, true enough, it generally didn’t use more than 10MB of RAM. But who cares about RAM usage? Most PCs on the market these days come with 1GB of RAM, or more. It is CPU usage, which is the problem. And just like every other security software suite like Norton which I have used, 360 v. 3.0 is a resource hog, just like all the others. Scans consistently topped 50% CPU usage. The test system is a 3.2GHz, dual core processor, with 2GB of RAM, running Windows XP SP3. When scanning, or doing anything CPU intensive, the computer basically freezes, or runs very slow, until the CPU has been released. This behavior is true of all security software, so Norton cannot be dinged too hard for this, which is why I am only subtracting 1 star from the review. However, they COULD have been a bit more honest in their claims and advertising. The thing is a resource hog, plain and simple. The main process running in system memory is pretty much always claiming 5-15% of the CPU, and whenever it is doing something more involved, then it regularly pings the CPU to 50% or higher.

My only other complaint about the product is how chatty it is. By default, it will pop-up and bug you whenever it has ANYTHING to report to you, including “tracking cookies” (which are not a real security threat.) This gets annoying after the 100th pop-up telling you it has blocked something. This behavior can be modified in the settings, but it is on by default. Norton also will ignore you if you restore a file which it has identified as a “virus,” and it will re-delete the file when it encounters it again. This is a problem if you are a computer security professional, and part of your job is to archive and analyze security threats. I had to encrypt the files I wanted to keep, in order to prevent Norton from finding them, and trying to delete them. Good job to Norton on being so aggressive, but they need to make it easier for a professional to override the program.

So, overall, I rate the product a 4/5, with it losing a star for its less than honest advertising about how “fast and light” it was, and for the other obnoxious behavior listed above. I will not be continuing to use the product, because as I stated previously, I don’t use any major security products. But, from the tests I ran, I would be perfectly happy to recommend this product to any family member or anyone in the general public, so long as they had the money for the product itself, and to pay for the updates subscription.

Review by Wilson Ramsay for Norton 360 3.0 1-User/3Pc
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I’ve never been a big Norton fan because it would let the occasional spy ware or virus through. When my subscription expired I updated to 360 ver 3. It would have been better to download a virus. My computer in general and the internet in particular ran very, very slow after the installation. Not only that, but I lost use of Google and access to several websites.

Norton support was none existent. I waited on hold for 2 hours and finally gave up without speaking to tech person. The only way to get my computer back was to uninstall 360 and do a system restore.